So after Dating and placing my Viking Age style beads… now what?

In my previous post, I outlined what kinds of beads I would be looking for out of my large glass bead collection.

In short, I sorted through thousands and thousands of beads, picking out shapes, colours, and sizes I thought “felt right”… then divided them all by colour, and then looked at my list to pull out the documented shapes, sizes, and opacities that I had evidence for. I also pulled out some wonderful melon beads, dotted beads, striped beads which I was super happy to find in the collection.

some of the melon beads I collected

Some of the dotted, striped, and silver-lined beads

Dating and placing my Viking Age bling – Summary and moving forward

Viking Age reproduction beads from Finland

So I started this project wanting to try to make more of my jewelry more historically informed – choosing beads that resemble beads found at Viking Age grave sites (etc) rather than just stringing together pretty beads.

As I started making my spreadsheet, there were so many beads that were represented by so many different places though. When I thought of how in the world I was going to sort them (so I could ‘easily’ just grab a pile and be confident they belonged together) I became overwhelmed.

So instead, I decided to start first with my pieces that are less common – my silver (etc) jewelry – and then make plans based on those.

Necklace inspired by Icelandic Viking bead examples

Icelandic-inspired necklace

After going through my glass beads (ones I’ve collected over several years as well as ones I was given by a friend), I began the process of stringing up a few necklaces for different costumes, with one of my areas to focus on being Viking Age Iceland.

I’d separated all of my workable beads into different baggies, each holding different variations (example: dark green transparent in one, dark blue opaque in another, silver & gold lined beads in another, etc) and then included slips of paper informing me which type of bead (sphere, double, melon, etc) would be appropriate for which location.  I did keep it quite broad “Viking age” and by country, rather than getting into specifics around items that were found in specific areas of each country.

Dating and placing my Finnish bling

Along with trying to date and place my Viking Age bling, I also wanted to make a note of some of the jewelry I use for my Finnish Viking Age (but not Viking!) costumes.

Round brooches – Sweden, Denmark, UK, Finland

First up are a pair of round brooches that I normally use for my Finnish Iron Age costume, although they’re photographed here with my Viking age bling.

These brooches are from Raymond’s Quiet Press, but were not specifically noted to be in the style of any particular find, though on the site they are mentioned to be suitable for Finnish costume.

A bit of further research suggests that this style is similar to the Jelling/Borre fusion-style brooches from Birka, Sweden and parts of Denmark, as well as those of Scandinavian origins found in the UK. Specifically the Portable Antiquities Scheme shows a brooch in this style found in Cambridgeshire. These brooches with a Jelling/Borre fusion style are dated to the first half of the 10th century.

Two necklaces inspired by Finnish bead examples

Necklace inspired by historic bead examples

After going through my glass beads (ones I’ve collected over several years as well as ones I was given by a friend), I began the process of stringing up a few necklaces for different costumes, with one of my first priorities to Finnish Iron Age examples.

I’d separated all of my workable beads into different baggies, each holding different variations (example: dark green transparent in one, dark blue opaque in another, silver & gold lined beads in another, etc) and then included slips of paper informing me which type of bead (sphere, double, melon, etc) would be appropriate for which location.  I did keep it quite broad “Viking age” and by country, rather than getting into specifics around items that were found in specific areas.